Category: opinion

Photographer Margaret Bourke-White — LIFE Magazine’s first female staff photographer — helped women in her profession reach new heights when she became the first female photographer accredited to cover World War II combat zones. This 1943 self-portrait shows her decked out in a fleece flight suit in front of the Flying Fortress bomber from which she had photographed, from four miles in the air, an attack on Tunis, soaring above the cloud-banked Mediterranean coast to become “the first woman ever to fly with a U.S. combat crew over enemy soil,”…

As a follower of the controversial issue of building shelters of foreign refugees in Tunisia, I was surprised as many Tunisians by what German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said after a Monday meeting with his Austrian counterpart Sebastian Kurz, that a refugee-reception arrangement “was unrealistic, because of unstable conditions in countries like Libya and Tunisia”. For his part, Sebastian Kurz referred that” reception centers should be set up outside the European Union’s borders”. I was surprised because the truth was absent while selfishness was present. We may understand such position…

Despite the different Libyan struggles and the discrepancies between the internal and external stakeholders of the Libyan conflict, the general picture depicts that the controversy is limited to the commander of the army of the House of Representatives (HoR), General Khalifa Haftar, who refuses talks, signaling the military solution, there is where observers are trying to include him within foreign interferences in Libya, bargains for that party or another. According to a report by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed website (translated here by LIBYAPROSPECT), Haftar’s ambitions are no longer about the army command…

German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert announced today at a press conference in Berlin that German chancellor Angela Merkel is set to arrive in Egypt on 2 March for her official visit to the country, where she will meet with Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi. The German chancellor is also expected to meet with Egyptian Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed El-Tayyeb, and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, before heading to Tunisia on Friday, 3 March to meet the Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebssi and Prime Minister Youssef Chahed who…

To address the Mediterranean migrant crisis, the EU is seeking closer partnerships with North African states. Since the controversial deal between Turkey and the European Union (EU) in March 2016 has largely succeeded in preventing refugees from reaching Europe through the eastern Mediterranean route, EU decisionmakers have turned their attention to the central Mediterranean. With election dates approaching for several EU states, and amid heightened fears about new waves of migrants entering Europe in the spring, politicians are trying to find quick solutions to prove their ability to manage the…

From the first days of the American presidential primaries the world followed Trump’s discourse with both fear and astonishment. This mixed feeling is mainly due to the harsh and unprecedented tone used by the candidate. In fact, Donald Trump attacked everybody: women, blacks, disabled persons, Muslims, Jewish, Mexican etc. Moreover, the man’s foreign policy was not clear and the whole world was suspicious about the outcome of Trump’s arrival to the White House. Apart from his good relations with Russia, he showed a very dark future of the world diplomacy.…

Fears have come up again as regards president Abdelaziz Bouteflika‘s health state after the postponement of Geman Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to algeria on February, 20. Observers are accustomed to see the president hosting some of the pillars of the Algerian State or its guests either pale or sick. Whatever the fears of the future of Algeria, the sisterly country is ready for all the unexpected scenarios, because Algeria went through the toughest crisis and turbulences under Bouteflika’s leadership. The latter has spent the longest period in the presidency of…

Tunisia has signed agreements with the EU for the return of illegal Tunisian immigrants and to host asylum seekers from other African countries. But Tunis is now denying those deals, writes Mourad Teyeb. Mourad Teyeb is a journalist and consultant based in Tunis. Since 2011, hundreds of thousands of Tunisian and sub-Saharan Africans have used the Tunisian soil and shores to sail to Europe in one of modern history’s most dreadful human tragedies. The numbers of the so-called “irregular migrants” vary from one month to another according to the political and…

The volume of international transfers of major weapons has grown continuously since 2004 and increased by 8.4 per cent between 2007–11 and 2012–16, according to new data on arms transfers published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Notably, transfers of major weapons in 2012–16 reached their highest volume for any five-year period since the end of the cold war. The flow of arms increased to Asia and Oceania and the Middle East between 2007–11 and 2012–16, while there was a decrease in the flow to Europe, the…

In Morocco, it would tip a delicate political balance. In Jordan, it could prevent American diplomats from meeting with opposition leaders. In Tunisia, it could make criminals of a political party seen as a model of democracy after the Arab Spring. Of all the initiatives of the Trump administration that have set the Arab world on edge, none has as much potential to disrupt the internal politics of American partners in the region as the proposal to criminalize the Muslim Brotherhood, the pre-eminent Islamist movement with millions of followers. “The impact…